It was the red-carpet interview that attracted the most notice at the Me Too Oscars Sunday night: Ryan Seacrest chatting with Taraji P. Henson. She stroked his chin and cooed, "The universe has a way of taking care of good people, you know what I mean?"

Huh? Afterwards Twitter lit up with "She shaded him!" tweets.

Not so, Henson clarified early Monday. She was trying to buck him up, she told People.

Here's the background: Seacrest, longtime co-host of the E! network's red-carpet coverage (plus, Live with Kelly and Ryan, and host of American Idol), has been accused of repulsive sexual misconduct by his ex-stylist dating back as much as a dozen years. He strongly denies it, says he's been cleared by the network, and claims the stylist tried to extort him for millions to keep quiet.

E! declined to bench Seacrest before the Oscars. Anonymous publicists then spread the word to tabloid gossips that A-listers would avoid Seacrest on the carpet. As it turned out, many did, but not all.

Henson was one of the ones who stopped to talk, mostly about the success of Mary J. Blige, nominated for two Oscars for her song and her role in Mudbound. That's when the exchange about the universe happened.

Seacrest did not react much on camera but when Henson moved on to the next interviewer, ABC’s Wendi McLendon-Covey, she said: “I’m great now that I’m in your company.”

That was enough to send Twitter into a schadenfreude swoon, or at least those tweeters determined to take down Seacrest.

If Taraji probably (definitely) hexing Ryan Seacrest on national television isn’t the wildest thing we see at the #Oscars then I am completely at a loss as to imagining what more could possibly go down tonight